A laminator is a device that performs a coating operation using heat and pressure applied by a roller in a state that a to-be-coated plate-shaped member is inserted between laminating films.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional small-sized laminator.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional small-sized laminator includes a roller 5 for applying a pressure to a pair of films FL of which one surface is in contact with the roller 5, plate-shaped supporting frames 1a and 1b for supporting both ends of the roller 5, roller gears 3 formed on an outer face of the plate-shaped supporting frame 1b to apply a rotational force to the roller 5, a motor gear 2 meshed with the roller gears 3 to transfer a rotational force of a motor M, and a manipulating panel for manipulating an operation of the laminator.
An operation of the above-described small-sized laminator will be described below. The rotational force of the motor M is transferred to the upper roller gear 3a by the motor gear 2, and the rotational force of the upper roller gear 3a is transferred to the lower roller gear 3b meshed with the upper roller gear 3a. Also, the rotational forces of the roller gears 3 are transferred to the roller 5 coupled with the roller gears 3. Then the films FL are pressed and heated by the roller 5 and is coated together with the plate-shaped member inserted between the upper film and the lower film.
Meanwhile, the small-sized laminator has a problem that the films are rolled to the roller 5 while the films are pressed and heated by the roller 5. Further, in case a user slantingly inserts the film, there is a problem that the films are distorted so that the coating operation is not performed correctly.
Hereinafter, it will be described methods applied to solve those problems according to the prior art.
One method is to disassemble the laminator to remove the film rolled to the roller. However, this method has an inconvenience that the procedure of disassembling the laminator should be entrusted to a technical expert.
Further, another method is to mount a motor rotatable in both forward and backward directions and to rotate the motor in the backward direction to pull out the film rolled to the roller 5. However, the bi-directional rotating motor rotatable in the backward direction is more expensive than the one-way rotating motor, and additional elements such as a condenser and a forward/backward rotating switch are needed. As a result, there is a problem that a manufacturing cost of the laminator is increased.
Particularly, since the small-sized laminator for home use or portable has such a simple structure that it is heated and pressed by one pair of rollers, it is much more inefficient to attach the bi-directional rotating motor, the condenser and the forward/backward rotating switch, which results in an increase of the manufacturing cost and the size of the laminator.